GLIDING NEW ZEALAND NEWS MAX STEVENS
GNZ EXECUTIVE OFFICER
NEW MEMBERS Excluding visiting foreign pilots, 46 new members have joined in the last six months. It is heartening to observe that about 1/3 of these are juniors. Not so good is the fact that we lost 57 in the usual October “cull”, bringing us to 814 flying members as at mid January. PROMOTIONAL BROCHURE By all accounts, the new brochure has been well received by clubs. There is a little stock remaining, so any club wanting more should contact me – first-in-first-served. SOUTH ISLAND REGIONAL OPERATIONS OFFICER I am pleased to report that Jerry O’Neill has agreed to take on the role as ROO for the South Island. Based in Christchurch, Jerry is centrally located and he replaces Ivan Evans (Nelson) and Terry Jones (Clutha Valley). The Executive would like to thank Ivan and Terry for their long service, having mentored clubs in their respective areas for many years. GNZ AUDITS OF CLUBS I would like to remind clubs that they now have a shared responsibility (with their ROO) for ensuring audits are completed. If your club is overdue for an audit, or will be due before June 2011, please make contact with your ROO ASAP to plan for the audit. If you are unsure when an audit is due, please contact the Acting NOO, George Rogers. Guidance on what is involved is provided by the General Operations Audit form (OPS 15), which is on the web site. ARCHIVED GLIDING SAFETY ARTICLES There is a page on our web site that archives some of the excellent safety articles that have appeared in SoaringNZ, CAA’s Vector and other magazines. This will be added to from time to time and provides an ongoing resource, not just for trainees, but for all pilots. Check it out – from the home page, navigate >Training>Safety Information. EXECUTIVE PROACTIVE BEHIND THE SCENES It may be timely to remind members that the Executive takes an active interest in a range of issues that demand attention and consume time and energy. Submissions may be made directly by GNZ on behalf of members, typically in response to a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) from the CAA, or via GNZ’s membership of the NZ Aviation Federation (NZAF), or both. GNZ is a founding member of NZAF, which represents almost all of the private and “sport and recreation” aviation organisations, including RNZAC, AOPA, Microlights, Warbirds, Sport and Vintage, Parachute Federation, Gliding, and Model Aircraft. Aligning with NZAF can increase the “voice” or weight of submissions. Immediate Past President and Acting NOO, George Rogers, is also Vice President of the NZAF – a most useful and influential connection for us. The Executive finds it has to be relatively ruthless in deciding which issues to focus on. It is difficult to cover all the bases and in cases where GNZ cannot realistically affect the outcome, our efforts are not to be wasted on them. Notes follow on some of the current issues where considerable effort has and is being made on your behalf. ADVENTURE AVIATION (CAR PART 115) The CAA proposes to regulate all forms of recreational aviation involving fare paying passengers. However, it is quite evident there is no safety basis for including gliding in Part 115, which would segregate out a small proportion of overall glider flights (3 or 4 %) and would complicate responsibility and accountability lines. The need for independent organisational certification and the attendant costs of gaining and maintaining such certification would effectively be a barrier to any development of “adventure gliding”, which is clearly not an enabler as the proposal claims to be. Any Part 115 gliding operation would have to rely on GNZ as the Part 149 organisation for a range of support services and that would likely create tensions between the volunteer-based sport/recreation personnel and those operating for hire and reward. There simply is no need to apply the 115 model to gliding, which has been successfully organised for many years with no serious injuries or fatalities to trial flight participants or paying passengers. GNZ has made a strong
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February 2011
This column is intended to give readers an ongoing insight into the activities of the GNZ Executive and its Committees. Rather than a detailed report on matters currently under consideration, here are some recent items of significance.
and detailed submission to the CAA. Our main driver is to ensure that normal trial flights by clubs are not caught up in the CAA’s intervention. CAA FUNDING The CAA recently issued consultation documents on funding alternatives. As CAA charges have been static for many years, there is a potential for new charges to impact on gliding. For example: the annual registration fees payable for each glider, the hourly charges for airworthiness certificate inspections, modification approvals, audits, and fees for pilot licences. There are likely to be flow-on effects from maintenance providers covering their costs by increasing their chargeout rates for maintenance of gliders or tow-planes. GNZ is working through the NZAF on this issue, pressing the CAA to minimise interventions in our aviation areas by furthering the “selfadministration” approach proven to be effective under the Part 149 certification arrangements. George Rogers is the NZAF representative on the industry group liaising with the CAA on the review, so our interests are well represented. George notes that he would have preferred six days gliding to the six days recently spent at meetings on this topic! ADS-B About a year ago, Airways called for submissions on a paper, “Airways Surveillance Policy & Strategy”. This paper noted that the current Primary Surveillance Radar (PSR) and ground based surveillance systems are nearing the end of their life and must be replaced in about 2018. Airways is promoting the adoption of ADS-B technology as the replacement for the existing PSR, to meet future ICAO requirements. Gliders would need to have appropriately certificated Mode S Transponders compatible with the ADS-B Surveillance system to be permitted access to Transponder Mandatory airspace. The majority of existing transponders in gliders would not be compatible. GNZ submitted that there should be no increases in Transponder Mandatory airspace, controlled or otherwise, until the longer term transponder requirements are sorted out. It is unfair to make changes requiring glider owners to fit transponders that may soon be outdated. We stressed that a clear timeline for defining the required equipment needs to be published to allow owners to make informed decisions on equipping or re-equipping their gliders, and the technical and cost issues need to be fully taken into account. There will be considerable debate on the best options for the future, but international requirements will be the driver. Those wishing to understand or follow the issue can find the Airways documents at www.airways.co.nz/documents/Surv_Policy_010310. GNZ will monitor developments and be involved in the future debate, likely to be a timeconsuming issue over the next 5 to 10 years. STRATEGIC PLANNING The last time GNZ extensively involved the clubs in planning was the two-day session in Matamata in April 2006. On that occasion key representatives from nine affiliates joined the Executive and most of its officers in a highly stimulating weekend. The current GNZ Strategic Plan (which can be downloaded from our web site) was built on the outcome from that Matamata session. The Executive believes that the mission statement and core objectives remain valid today, but it is now time that we refreshed club input into the broad strategies for achieving these objectives. It does not seem clear what the clubs expect of GNZ, and the GNZ revenue model may need revisiting. It has been decided to run a pilot planning session involving four of the bigger clubs plus a small number of selected individuals. Auckland, Piako, Taupo and Tauranga clubs are thought suitable for their relative proximity, with the session to be held on Sunday 27 February at Tauranga, backing onto the Executive meeting the previous day. Hauraki and Rotorua clubs will be represented as well. Based on what we learn from the Tauranga meeting, further sessions may be held at other centres.
